A glimpse into the heart of God (Jer 4:19-31)

One of the things that many readers find hard about the Old Testament is the description of God as wrathful and vengeful, full of fury and anger. We imagine unrestrained human rage, unreasonable, implacable, and vindictive, but despite the Bible’s use of human emotions to describe God, there is a difference because His anger is never uncontrolled or unjust. Further, we read these descriptions in isolation from the larger whole that depicts the sins committed, so that we do not appreciate the people’s repeated rebellion against the Lord, the injustices committed, the exploitation of others, the refusal to acknowledge or seek God. Given our association of anger as something negative and this gap in our understanding as to the cause, it can seem that the Lord is too impatient and without pity towards His people. Yet, is it possible that we, created human beings, have more compassion than God Himself? Surely not, yet it is hard to shake our impressions.

Who is speaking?

Our reading gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. It starts with the prophet’s voice crying out in pain with pounding heart and writhing in agony as he looks at the coming devastation (Jer 4:19-21). Although cities were built with stones, they would collapse like a house of cards, as easily as tents when the pegs are pulled out (v.20 cf. Jer 10:20). Then, the voice changes and suddenly it is God speaking though continuing in the first person (Jer 4:22). In English translations, there is sometimes a gap inserted to separate this verse from the previous, and quotation marks are placed to indicate a different speaker. However, the Hebrew does not have gaps or use quotation marks, so that the first-person speech continues from v.21. This makes the reader wonder who was speaking in the first place.

Anguish and judgement

As it turns out, this is a recurring feature of the Book of Jeremiah, where the voice of the prophet merges with the voice of God to the point where it becomes difficult to separate the two (see e.g. Jer 9:1-3). Jeremiah’s anguish reflects God’s over the destruction that must be. The report in Jer 4:23-26 describes the effects of the devastation that is as cataclysmic as the undoing of creation (‘formless and void’, no light – v.23; Gen 1:2) and as the shaking of the very foundations of the earth (v.24). The Lord does not take delight in causing pain and destruction, even as the passage describes it as brought about by His burning anger. We can appreciate this combination of pity, anguish and judgement when we think of Jesus crying over Jerusalem, but also cleansing the temple and painting the fate of those who rebel and resist God to the bitter end (Luke 19:41-46; 20:14-18).

Despite the ray of hope in all this catastrophe (God will not make a complete end of His people – Jer 4:27), judgement is inevitable. God will not change His mind (Jer 4:28), not because He is unyielding but because the people’s attitude is. Their relationship with Him is lacking, they do not know Him or understand, and their actions are correspondingly evil rather than good (Jer 4:22). Even as their world is falling apart around them, they tart themselves up to entice their lovers (Jer 4:30; probably indicating the manoeuvrings for political alliances), still defiant and not seeking God.

The logic of the incarnation

The people’s behaviour is riling and tragic in equal measure and will end in pain like childbirth but bring forth death rather than life (Jer 4:31). It is hard not to feel frustration mingled with pity at such an attitude. Jeremiah embodies these feelings throughout his ministry and so reveals the heart of God. His very human emotions bring it all home to us because we can more easily relate to him, another human being caught in the dilemmas and pain of life on earth. It is, in fact, the logic of the incarnation in the prophets and ultimately in Jesus Christ: God comes down to our human level, so we might relate to Him from what is familiar to us.

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